Insecurities of men.

 I am sure I am not the only one. I can't be. 

There are lots of encouraging and uplifting memes and posts for women and their struggles. You know the ones.... Body image and work and relationships and being a mom. Well, men have these insecurities too, but you don't see them being uplifted. 

I think it's because people either feel that we just have to man up, stuff it deep inside, and move on or they truly believe that men don't struggle like women do. 

And that is a load of bull. 

I struggle with a lot of issues. I am positive there are multitudes of men that are the same. Seriously….. just look at suicide rates. We just feel like we will be brushed aside and minimized because we are guys. There is no way we can feel as deep or second guess ourselves or struggle from unfair judgement like women. Right?

 Just being a guy can be hard. For me, I am not exactly the most masculine guy. I mean yeah, I look the part, I guess, but I just don't have that confrontational arrogance that exudes love of sports, cars, and objectifying women. I am a guy that can just about do anything I set my mind to from cooking dinners to using power tools to sewing to doing science experiments. I pretty smart too. I am sensitive and emotional, and I would like to think that I and pretty empathetic. I just come off as being overly odd. 

I struggle with my job at times. I am a teacher and I am one of those "I can change the world one kid at a time!" kind of teachers. But there are days more often than not that I get to the end and think, "What the hell am I doing?" It was a disaster and I feel like I made no difference at all. I worry most of the time if I am doing a good enough job or I am making the class challenging but not too challenging.

I wonder if my bosses don't want me there anymore or if I am more trouble than I am worth. Most of all, I just don't want someone to say something I did or said is misinterpreted or untrue that could make me lose my job. Honestly, it's easy to do to a teacher (especially a male teacher) and there is no going back no matter if I am exonerated or not. That is a real fear I have.

I struggle with being a husband. Those who know me would be surprised I am sure. I talk about my wife all the time and I dote on her and show her how deeply I love her every chance I get. I struggle though. I am a Christian and I am tasked with leading my family. It is clear in the Bible what being a leader of the house means. It means that the husband is the last say on the decisions that affect our marriage as a family. And, I just don’t feel like I am getting done.

Honestly, I think it is meant for the husband to protect his wife from the guilt of poor choices. Let me be clear, it is not for the husband to command or dominate. He is to love and seek council and wisdom from his wife but in the end the choice is his and if it goes wrong, he bears the responsibility. That way his wife is spared guilt and shame. 

That is so hard of a job that I struggle with letting her down and disappointing her. She depends on me to make wise choices and to protect her and to make sure she will never have a need or want. Honestly? There are times where I just don't know what the hell I am doing. 

I dote on her but also feel like I am not doing enough or taking care of her enough or giving her enough support for her feelings and mental health and stuff. She gets worn out and depressed sometimes and I feel like it is my fault that I can't do anything or unable to change it at times. I am supposed to be able to support her and lift her up out of it. But there are days I lay next to her at night thinking I make no difference at all. I lay there not feeling like I deserve the affection she is giving me.

I have found that being a Dad is the most challenging and most morale spirit breaking role I play. I look at my kids and constantly wonder.... Am I saying the right thing? Am I coddling too much or not enough? Am I giving just the right amount of wisdom? Am I letting them be independent enough? And on and on and on the questions go. The second guessing. I feel like I am failing at this dad thing all the time. And you know what? I really don't know if they are going to be alright or not. They seem to be struggling in so many ways but I just don't know what else to do. You know? 

I look to the men in my life and wonder..... How did they do it? I look at the man my dad is and think that he is the superman of husbands and fathers. I am nothing compared to him and how can I live up to be a man like him? My grandpa was an old school man of the house type and I disagreed with many of his "man of the house" philosophies, but he taught me so much about integrity and confidence and that nothing is out of my reach to learn. I fail at so much but then I am able to do so much at the same time and it is because of the type of man he was. I just don't feel like I could ever measure up to him. 

In the end I know that maybe I should not feel like I have to live up to them or strive to be who they are. But in my mind, they are such great men and I want to be like them. But I struggle. I feel like I am falling short all the time. I feel like I am just one poor choice or one wrong sentence from catastrophe. 

And I am guessing I am not the only man that feels that way.

No matter what, tomorrow is coming. It always does. I have been learning that the number of men lately that choose not to face it is increasing. That is not me and I have a lot of grit to keep going. I have my wife that keeps me going no matter how scared I am that I am not being enough for her. I have my boys that need me to keep talking and keep pressing on even when I think they think I am not being the dad they need. I keep going because I just do and I can't explain why I do. I keep going even when it's hard and I am unsure. I keep going because I just keep going.

Anyway, just remember. Men struggle too. Most of the time it is silent or they express it behind closed doors. We do struggle, though, and the more encouragement we get will give us that little bit more of strength to keep stepping forward. . . . To keep at it the next day. And the next. And the next. Even when we feel like we don't know what the hell we are doing.

Love story #17 - Births part two

I am just going to say that the average person has no idea how difficult it is to have children for some people. For some, they sacrifice a lot - everything at times, sometimes changing their lives forever just for the chance of changing their lives forever with children. This is true for my wife and I. And again, what we went through is still not even close to what others have endured. 

We didn't have infertility.

We didn't have the trauma of IVF

We didn't have to endure the horror and mental anguish of miscarriage. 

We didn't have to tell each other that children were not in our cards.

Deciding to have another child after what she . . . we . . . went through with our first boy was a tough decision. But we thought we knew what to expect and that we would be ready this time. We would know what to watch out for and know what the struggles will be and it will be easier. 

Yeah, that is what we thought. 

First, though, there was a big stressor in our marriage that was like an elephant in the room. It all had to do with the aftermath of the first birth. Can I be blunt? Are we all adults and understand those things that two people that love each other that no one talks about but know happen? Can we can be open and plain with each other? I hope so. 

After the first birth, my wife had pretty extensive damage to her birth canal and the recovery was not the most pleasant. The aftermath left her with scarring and it was very difficult for her to be intimate with me because she would have bleeding and bad pain (more like excruciating) for days afterward. Seriously, she would suffer. Like, hard to walk piercing pain don't touch her suffering. 

I am not sure how others would treat this but you can imagine that my wife was in quite a mental state about it. She just could not get in the "mood" because to her it was going to hurt and she would be paying for it for days afterward. But on the other hand, she truly believed that I would leave her because of her unwillingness and hesitancy. That guilt was so much that she decided to endure the pain and not tell me. Can you even comprehend what she was doing to herself? Because she feared that I would leave her is why she chose to have sex even though it was excruciating and she would suffer pain for days afterward.  So, she went through the pain and the suffering quietly and endured it.  

And it ripped my soul open when I found out.

I am not oblivious. It is an irritating quirk of mine to always be on the lookout for anything that changes with my wife. Chalk it up to being a science guy. I am observant. It started with seeing her wearing a pad for a couple of days after we were intimate. After I made the connection between the two, I ask her about it after I saw her wincing and then she shrugged it off. It was more than just my size and her size like before. I could tell, it was more than just an inconvenience. When I understood, I was broken inside. She was choosing for me to abuse her body and to suffer in pain for days instead of telling me out of fear that I would leave. She did this out of fear of me leaving her because of something she had no control over. She did this for like one and a half years. Can you even come close to being able to see what I am trying to describe?  We tried to see if there was anything we could do to fix the problem.... yeah, "fix" is not really a good word to describe it but it is the only one I can think of. She had a surgery (episiotomy) and some scaring removed but it didn't work. So, what now?

And she wanted another baby and she knew I wanted another one too.  We had decided two years difference in our boys would be a decent gap so we stopped using birth control measures.  We didn't know when but we hoped it would be sooner than our first boy. And, again, it was just not in our cards. We would try and then wait for her to recover ..... Wait for a positive test. Then we would try again. Wait, again. 

It was not really a great experience for us to tell the truth. Here we are trying to have another baby but one of us is physically suffering pain for days after each try and both of us are suffering emotional pain from things that are out of our control. We went through the whole ordeal again (see the births part one). This time though, you can add the fact that I was basically assaulting my wife. Well, I suppose technically I was not if it was consensual but, in my mind, and heart..... Hurting her like that on purpose even if she wanted me to was as good as abuse. It is not really easy to ...... Well ...... Be able to..... Perform? God, how do you explain something like this to people that have no idea what it is like..... What we were both physically and mentally and emotionally suffering with? 

God. You can't even imagine I bet. I still don't think I am coming close to describing it...... To really put words to this thing that is like a twisted little devil that sits in the room just putting pressure on a relationship and the pure will and love power we had to keep it at bay. 

And this went on for months. And then over a year. 

Then, just like that...... just like the first time.  We got a positive test. She was pregnant again. 

We were so excited but that was tempered by the effort it took. It was tempered by what we knew was coming up. There was a lot to do and to plan for. And so it began. 

Everything seemed to be going so much better this time. We were being treated at Vanderbilt and she was placed on high-risk but no bed rest. She developed pre-gestational diabetes and that was caught a lot sooner than with our first. All her vitals and all of the milestones hit when and how they were supposed to. We even were told that if there was a problem with the birth, they could have the baby out in less than 5min. 

It was a lot better this time around. But as always. . . . when things seem too good to be true. . . . you know

Everything was going pretty good until the morning which was one month from the due date. My wife and I were sitting at the table before school started. 

She flippantly looked at me and said, "You know, if this was our first boy, he would be born today."

I was like, "Shhhh! Don't jinx us! Damn, Girl!"

We giggled a little and then went about our day. 

And what was a small joke in the morning with a little giggle of reminiscence, became real. 

Her water broke that night. 

My wife was not quite in the mental state she was the first time around. We've been through this once before and everything was rolling just like it was the first time so there was nothing to worry about compared to last time.

Me? I was worried about everything. I was worried about more hemorrhaging. I was worried about hospital time. I was worrying about whether or not there was something wrong with the baby. I was worrying about why this baby was early just like the other one. But of course nothing could be answered till we got to the hospital so off we went.

On the way to the hospital, we had our first stumble. Our first son got car sick on the way and threw up all over himself. It was all over the front of him and all in his booster seat. That was quite the ride to the hospital smelling that of course! And when we got to the hospital my aunt was there waiting for us and I told her that he was sick and he had vomit all over him. She said she'd take him anyway. I don't know if she truly realized how much that meant to me. So, I unstrapped his belt and put him in her car in his car seat and all, Up chuck all over him and all. She gave me a hug and off we went our separate ways. 

In the hospital, My wife was all hooked up and ready to go. She was having contractions regularly and it seemed as if all was fine. Of course, that was not going to be the case soon.

When she was having a contraction, three nurses and a doctor came rushing in and set on her with what they thought were voices and actions that were just normal procedure, but I could tell were not as they seemed. They were moving with a sense of urgency even though they were trying to hide the fact. They were asking a lot of questions and checking a lot of readings and palpitating all over her belly. I could tell that there was something that was not right and that they were worried. 

It happened all at once. They told my wife that they were going to turn her while telling her that they were struggling to get a heartbeat for the baby. They inserted a device up to the baby to check the heartbeat. That's when the doctor looked at the nurses and said, "we go now." I one nurse pull cords out of the wall and the other nurse grabbed the chords on the other side of the bed while the third opened the door to the room. 

And they were gone. 

Just like that - - they were gone.

One moment I was in a room full of people and the next I was standing in an empty room wondering what the hell just happened. Right after that thought a nurse came with some blue outfit and told me my wife was ready and that I needed to come with her right now. I did. Putting on the outfit she handed me which was an overalls-like paper thing that was labeled "one size fits all," I rushed with the nurse down the hall to where I hoped my wife was. 

I walked into the room and saw her laying on a table with a surgical cap over her head and she was covered down to just below the breasts with a green sheet and a green sheet was upright over the upper tummy like a screen. I thought - c-section. When I looked down to my wife, I saw that she was shaking uncontrollably. I asked why she was shaking, and they told me that it was the anesthesia that did that. I whispered to her that everything would be ok while tears trickled down her cheek. 

When I looked up to see what was happening, I was shocked to see my baby boy's head clear the top of the sheet screening the bottom of my wife's body. Later when all was said and done, I would think to myself that when they said that they can get a baby out in a few minutes that they weren't kidding! But for now, I was barely hanging on to thinking straight and everything was happening so fast. I stood up and moved to keep my son in sight as they handed him off to a nurse who set him on a sheet covered table under a bright light. 

The first thing I noticed was a deep depression in the middle of his chest as he cried like someone was taking their finger and pushing the center of his chest hard, pushing the skin down to the table. It was deep and I didn't like the look of it. It didn't look right. When he gasped in a breath, the depression would rise up to be flat with the rest of his chest and when he screamed it would plunge straight back into his chest again. It was definitely not right. 

I was then being guided out of the room and back to the room we started in. They ushered me in and told me that my wife would be there shortly. I asked if I could go with my son and they told me that I would not be able to and that I would be able to see him later. That worried me because I was able to follow my oldest son to where they prepped him and I still had that image of his chest in my mind that I was rolling around and building worry about. 

It seemed like a long time for all this to happen but in reality, from the time they took her from the room to the time I was put back in the room was probably less than 10 minutes. As I look back it was one of those time where times slowed down to be a crawl as the stress and anxiety took hold. And as for me, I was taking in an incredible amount of information through sight and sound and it all was overwhelming. Standing there in the room afterwards when it was over almost had me fall to my knees with the confusion of it all. 

My wife came back and was asleep. They told me she did just fine and to let her sleep it off. I sat next to her to just take a few moments and calm myself in her presence and having the comfort of her breathing in the comfort of sleep. I was mentally and emotionally spent and needed that time to recharge. 

Later that morning we found out that our boy was not ok. He was not in danger or critical but he was not able to be brought back to our room. They told us that he would have to stay in the NICU for awhile but that they didn't know how long. You see, that depression I saw in his chest was a problem. They told us that since he was not born naturally that he was not squeezed and that an air bubble was in his chest keeping one of his lungs from fully inflating. That was why his chest did that when he cried. They said it was nothing to worry about and that the air would just defuse out of the body on its own. It was somewhat common for C-section babies and all we had to do was wait. 

It was devastating for us. No one really prepares you to see your baby in NICU. He was so small and he had all these wires and tubes hanging off him. We could only look at him through the incubator and I would watch the lines and numbers roll across all the screens of the machines he was hooked up to. We would visit him as much as we were able to for the next couple of days.

And on the third day they told us that our insurance would not cover my wife staying at the hospital until our boy was released. . . . and if she wanted to stay it would be over a $1000 a day. 

It was heart breaking to have to be told that we couldn't stay with our baby and that we couldn't afford the absorbent costs of staying in the hospital with him. We were crushed and we were frightened. We had one more visit with our baby and they let us hold him for the first time since he was born. We sat and cried. We were going to leave soon. We were going to leave the hospital without our baby. We were going to leave him there. And it broke us. 

We reluctantly handed him over to the nurse and slowly gathered up our belongings. We struggled towards our car in the basement as if there was someone holding us back every step of the way. We sat in our van in the basement for probably two hours . . . neither of us wanting to go. Neither of us wanting to leave with our baby still in the hospital. But the time came where it had to be done. We had to go and I had to be strong enough to do it. 

She cried the entire way home. 

After a day of crying and pain, we received a call to be told our son was ready to come home the next morning. We didn't even sleep that night and waited to head back to get him. The one thing I remember vividly was how the nurses said that they didn't want to see him go since he was one of the few that they could actually hold because the others had to stay in the incubators. But he was ready and healthy, and he was ours to take with us! We were so ecstatic! 

The next several weeks were nerve wracking as we worried about every little hiccup. But as we gained confidence that he was growing and he was being a normal baby, we eased into being new parents and enjoyed every moment with him. 

And that was our journey with our second boy's birth.